in Summertime

March 12, 2014March 12, 2014

And I Call Myself a Sherlockian

Last month I decided to watch the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which I had seen only once many years ago, maybe twenty or so. I used to be bit of a purist in my younger years, so I would overlook non-canon Sherlock, my attention being all for Conan Doyle. But Mark Gatiss keeps on telling everyone that Private Life is the main inspiration for BBC Sherlock so I thought maybe it was time to consider it seriously.

Now I’m so ashamed of myself. It took me an entire month to confess it. I’m a rubbish Sherlockian. I wrote a fervent post two year ago accusing Moffat of ruining Irene Adler, when she was not even Irene Adler in the first place, and I was so ignorant that I was not able to recognized her and just assumed, and accused Moffat to fail the Bechdel test consistently in his entire work, which he actually does actually, but not intentionally after all.

Irene from A Scandal in Belgravia is not Irene from A Scandal in Bohemia, she is clearly Ilse von Hoffmanstal from Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, only this time Sherlock Holmes goes after her and saves her, and this is good, because he would have done that in Private Life, given the opportunity, I think, so Moffat is not trying to turn Irene into a damsel in distress, he is trying to save Ilse von Hoffmanstal, now that London guarantees express connections to four international airports and you can basically fly everywhere on a short notice. I think we all agree that Ilse von Hoffmanstal never was, and never will be a damsel in distress, and we would all love for her to be alive, Sherlock Holmes especially.

Oh Steve why didn’t you just tell us? Sorry we were like that, really sorry.

Although I’m still not convinced about the beheading. The beheading in an Islamic country still disturbs me, I find it an ugly cliche and inevitably a marked reference to women’s condition in confessional countries, but I’ll admit that you couldn’t reasonably have a Western spy executed by firing squad in Japan nowadays, regardless of the fact that Japan still allows capital punishment, not by firing squad but hanging I think.

Anyway, I am inexcusable. Watch The Private life of Sherlock Holmes please, if you haven’t done so in the recent years, and find Mycroft, Holmes, Watson and Irene/Ilse, they way Moffat and Gatiss think about them, when they sit down and write them for us fools.

And of course we will be discussing the glass of tea matter in the the near future.